MAY

women and dark women ; young women and not
so young; women who powder and women who
are unconscious of their noses ; women with beauti-
ful legs and not so beautiful ; women for whom
any man would lay down his life ; women for
whom, presumably, men have done so.

At no time in the year is such a wide selection
of women to be observed in London. Novelists in
search of heroines should go to Oxford Street
because every type can be discovered there, moving,
talking, laughing, treading on one another's toes,
packed together like a herd. The mass effect of
so much woman-power—each unit in the mass the
centre, or designed to be the centre, of some man's
life—is astonishing. They pack the pavements.
They form a living fringe to the shop windows.
Where the windows end round street corners the
crowd of women ends. They stretch in an unbroken
line from the Marble Arch to the Tottenham Court
Road—the massed bands of the household brigade ;
the wives, sisters, sweethearts, mothers and grand-
mothers of the County of London. . . .

Oxford Street, as becomes the street of women,
is a queer, moody street. Its south side is in a
different mood from its north. The south of
Oxford Street appears to be related to the old
Strand. On this side there are men. People move
more quickly. They are obviously going somewhere.
The north side—this devastating herd of women !

The morning mood of Oxford Street is different
from the afternoon mood. In the morning, Regent
Street is on bowing terms with Oxford Street,
Women in fur coats drive up in motor-cars. In
the afternoon Regent Street keeps itself to itself and
allows Oxford Street to * surge'.

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